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Annabel Lee$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l)
(includes shipping)This is an experimental
comic for sure.
I went in with some ideas & they morphed around quite
a bit.
It's paper doll photography & a collaboration with a
dead
author & it's non-linear featuring an astronaut.Words
by Edgar Allan Poe.Photography &
paper dolls by Brian John Mitchell.

Astronaut Jane$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l)
(includes shipping)A new
series?
Maybe. Astronaut Jane
is about an astronaut alone in space. This piece was written
based on the cover art - which is an interesting way to work.Story &
words
by Brian John Mitchell.Artwork by Jason
Strutz.

Barbarian
In Vegas$2 ($2.50 intn'l)
(includes shipping)A new series?
Maybe, at the very least our first zero issue. Vaguely
inspired by the comic book What
If Conan Was Trapped in the Twentieth Century.Story & words
by Brian John Mitchell.Concept &
Artwork by Nate McDonough.

For a limited time Bottle Comics available in a bottle! We'll even send
you loose ones to read along with it! $15 ($25 intn'l)

Built$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l)
(includes shipping)Built is the
story of a robot fighting
his programming & his masters.Story &
words
by Brian John Mitchell.Artwork by Joe
Badon.

Built
Issue

Built
Issue

Cerebus Reflection$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l)
(includes shipping)So I'm a big
Cerebus
fan & a big Conan fan. I originally wrote this story
as a short King Conan piece, but Margaret Liss was looking for some
stuff for her Cerebus Newsletter so I changed a few words around. Story &
words
by Brian John Mitchell.Artwork by Jason
Young.

Messenger$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l)
(includes shipping)The elder gods are
coming. Will you stop them or guide them here?

Mobil Zombie$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l)
(includes shipping)A mini-comic
about working in a gas station after a zombie apocalypse.
BJM's second comic from back in the year 2000.Story &
words
& art by Brian John Mitchell.

Monthly$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l)
(includes shipping)A
mini-comic
about the dark side of relationships.Story &
words
by Brian John Mitchell.Artwork by Eric
Shonborn.

Pow Wow$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l)
(includes shipping)A mini-comic
about the folk magic of the Pennsylvania Dutch & the problems
coping with a loved one dying.Story & words
by Brian John Mitchell.Artwork by ED.

Pow Wow
Issue

Pow Wow
Issue

order Pow Wow #1-#3 for
$3 ($5 international) (includes shipping)

Promute Origins$1.50 ($2.50
intn'l)
(includes shipping)A mini-comic
about the origins of Promute.Words
by Brian John Mitchell.Artwork by
Andrew
Sandor.

UVDS -
Bunny!$1.50 ($2.50
intn'l)
(includes shipping)A couple years ago
Jason Young (Veggie Dog
Saturn) asked Mitchell to write a piece for Jason's autobio book.
Jason rejected the "Bunny!" story (about a dying rabbit) as
being too creepy to fit
in
his comic, so it was spun off here.Story & words
& art by Brian John Mitchell.

UVDS
- Father Figure$1.50 ($2.50
intn'l)
(includes shipping)A couple years ago
Jason Young (Veggie Dog
Saturn) asked Mitchell to write a piece for Jason's autobio book.
Jason rejected the "Father Figure" story (about manipulating
a relationship for personal gain) as being too creepy to fit
in
his comic, so it was spun off here.Story & words
& art by Brian John Mitchell.

Vigilant$1.50 ($2.50
intn'l)
(includes shipping)
Vigilant is the story of vigilantes
or revolutionaries or a better
future.
Story & words
by Brian John MitchellArtwork by PB
Kain (#1)
& Brian John Mitchell (#2)

Vigilant
issue

Vigilant
issue

Walrus$2 ($3 intn'l)Perhaps our most fun
comic. It's about a walrus making a living playing saxophone after the
apocalypse.Words & story
by Brian John Mitchell
Artwork by Jared Catherine

XO$1.50 ($2.50
intn'l)
(includes shipping)The adventures
of a sociopath with a heart
of gold. Story &
words
by Brian John Mitchell.Artwork by
Melissa
Spence Gardner.

XO
issue

XO
issue (international)

order all
seven issues of XO for
$6 ($8 international)

Silber
Mini-Comics Sampler$1.50 ($2.50
intn'l)
(includes shipping)Seven original
short tales from Lost Kisses,
XO, Worms, Just A Man, Mecha, Ultimate Lost Kisses, & Marked.Sample all the
series
on a budget.

Reviews:Brian John Mitchell
specialises in mini
comics so small that they're probably best described as micro-comics.
I’ve
seen many small press creators supplement their traditional DIY output
with a few super-tiny publishing experiments over the last few years,
but
Mitchell really takes this practice to the next level by exclusively
focusing
on these matchbox-sized books. Working as writer only, he enlists the
help
of a wide variety of artistic collaborators to illustrate his work,
from
unknowns to even Dave Sim of Cerebus fame. Featuring avenging cowboys,
giant worms, gory gang land killings, post-apocalyptic wastelands and
demon
fighting, it seems like all weird and wonderful things come in small
packages.Ironically, considering
their
diminutive
size, the content of these comics is almost always epic in scope. As
you
might be able to guess from the list of features above, there's an
extensive
focus on loud-and-proud genre work, with pop-culture staples like Sci
Fi,
Fantasy and even Western, prominently used in his work. The advantage
of
this is that the stories have an efficient, boiled-down quality to
them;
providing the reader has some understanding the genres they are
channeling.
Some work, some don’t, but all have a certain charm to them; tiny
creative
perspectives that gradually form a larger picture of Mitchell’s overall
style.Of the selection
Mitchell
kindly sent
us, Just a Man (drawn by Andrew White) stood out as the most successful
in its aims, reducing the Western genre to its core semiotic
components.
It's a familiar story: a nameless man laying a bloody road of revenge
across
the West following his wife’s murder. Though truncated, it builds on
the
preexisting expectations of the reader, economically building a
satisfying
narrative and setting. In this sense, it reminds me of Jeff Lemire’s
Sweet
Tooth; where the comic partially relies on readers’ understanding of
genre
archetypes to be engrossed as quickly and subconsciously as possible.
Admittedly,
I’ve only had the pleasure of reading the fourth “issue”, and an
introductory
story within the Silber Mini-Comics Sampler, but I was nonetheless
impressed
by just how atmospheric and engaging it manages to be.Also of note is (the
slightly
bigger in
format) Mecha, labelled as an accompaniment to a Silber Media released
album by Remora (Mitchell's music project) of the same name. I don't
know
much about the music itself, other than one Remora CDs features a
picture
of a Zentradi mech from Robotech/ Macross, so obviously its
okay
in my book. The comic itself is a post-apocalyptic story about a man's
discovery of a gigantic aging mech. In a narrative archetype so classic
it rivals Homer's Odyssey in terms of replication, he subsequently
repairs
and pilots the machine. Drawn attractively by Johnny Hoang, it reads
very
much like the kind of dirty 1970s Sci-Fi comic you'd find at a garage
sale
amongst a tattered pile of 2000ADs and weird 1970s-era Kirby covers;
which
you shouldn't need me to tell you is no bad thing at all. No sir.I'd be remiss not to
mention
the reversible
crime comic Cops & Crooks, which, features a story from the
titular
factions on each side. Affordable, portable and coming with oh-so-handy
tiny plastic comic bags, head on over to the Silber media website to
load
up on these miniature marvels now. They May get lost in your longbox,
but
at least you'll be able to fit them in your wallet for your next ride
to
work. Ride on public transport that is, we really don't endorse reading
mini-comics whilst you drive. Peace!~ Martin Steenton,
Avoid the
Future
Brian John Mitchell
publishes his micro
mini comics in batches, so it seems fitting to review them in a like
fashion.
All are printed in black & white, handmade, saddle stitched,
with self-covers
that are included in the page counts listed (below). Unless otherwise
mentioned,
they measure about 2" x 2.25" and each one is packed in its own tiny
plastic
bag. Most of the series are continued from issue to issue, but with the
beginning recap at the start of each issue you can enjoy them singly as
well. They will likely end with a cliffhanger, but that's part of the
fun.Silber Mini-Comics
Sampler #1
60 pages.
At $1 a copy I'm not sure why a sampler of Silber's tiny titles is
necessary,
but for those afraid of commitment this may be just the ticket. On the
other hand, the book isn't a simple reprint of excerpts from the titles
it samples. No way. Instead, each micro sample presents a few original
pages in the spirit of seven of Silber's ongoing series. So if you're a
completist, you'll want this one too. Here's what's inside, in
Mitchell's
own words:Just A Man tells the
story of
a man in
the old west fighting for vengeance, justice, and salvation with a gun.
With art by Andrew White.Worms follows a young
woman
who's a victim
of medical experiments that have made her world a very dangerous place.
With art by Kimberlee Traub.XO is about a sociopath
with
a heart of
gold . . . who can't stop killing people. With art by Melissa Spence
Gardner.Marked chronicles the
life of
a retired
demon-hunter dragged back into his profession and on the run from the
law.
With art by Jeremy Johnson.Lost Kisses chronicles
the
life of a depressed,
self-obsessed, and self-deprecating stick figure. With art by Brian
John
Mitchell.Ultimate Lost Kisses
stands
Lost Kisses
on its head with great artwork and heartfelt stories from the female
perspective.
With artwork for the sampler drawn from Arlene Hughes' collection of
Chinese
paper cuttings.Mecha follows a lone
survivor
trying to
save the human race and hopefully end his life and suffering in the
process.
With artwork by Johnny Hoang.Due to their relatively
high
page counts
and size Silber's micro mini comics are puffy little packages.
Fortunately,
Mitchell compresses each one and stuffs it into a tiny plastic bag that
helps preserve and flatten them out. The rest of the batch he sent
consists
of:Cops & Crooks
#1 by
Mitchell (story)
is split down the middle and requires readers to flip the comic over to
its second cover to continue reading. 40 pages. The the Cops half by
Jason
Young and the Crooks half is drawn by Eric Shonborn.Each half tells the
story of
a boy growing
up without a father who was killed by either law enforcement or a
criminal.
Each character is defined by his past. As their futures rush together,
they are sure to clash in an upcoming chapter.Just A Man #4 by
Mitchell
(story) and
Andrew White (art). 48 pages. Previously, the main character went on a
killing spree to avenge his wife's murder. Then he was hired to rescue
his employer's daughter from a whorehouse. Problem is, shortly after
saving
her, he discovers the girl really wasn't his employer's daughter, and
his
wife is still alive. He settles accounts with the boss man and then
sets
out to find his spouse.Marked #2 by Mitchell
(story)
and Jeremy
Johnson (art). 52 pages. After almost a decade of normal life, Mark
excises
his retirement to fight some local demons. Unfortunately he's grown
weak
and had to unleash his inner demon to win the fight. Now it's on the
loose
and that spells the end of Mark's civilian life. There's nothing left
now
but battle and escape.Mecha #1 by Mitchell
(story)
and Johnny
Hoang (art) is an unusually large format for Silber, measuring in at
about
2.75" square and 32 pages. Martians have invaded and conquered Earth.
They've
enslaved what remains of the native population. As the story opens, the
narrator finds himself cast in the role of a gladiator fighting for his
life for the entertainment of his captors. He escapes to find his
destiny
on a almost hopeless planet.XO #6 by Mitchell
(story) and
Melissa
Spence Gardner (art). 40 pages. In the last chapter, the
sixteen-year-old
narrator committed a semi-accidental murder and was left with the dead
body and a vintage Ford Mustage. He takes off on Interstate 95 to deal
with his immediate problem and his longer term dilemma.Worms #6 by Mitchell
(story)
and Kimberlee
Traub (art). 44 pages. After escaping from a series of medical
experiments
in which her body became host to alien worms, the narrator/main
character
jumps into a huge tank only to be swallowed whole by a gigantic worm.
Fortunately
her mind controls it and she uses it to fight back at her captors. That
is, until they turn up the juice.It's hard to go wrong
with
any of Mtichell's
minis. They're action-packed and filled with unexpected twists. Just
choose
your favorite genre and dive in. $1 each from Silber Media Comics.~ Midnight Fiction
Looking at the
newest set of minicomics
from Raleigh, NC’s own Brian John Mitchell and friends, it’s become
clear
that the most successful of these odd little 2×2? (and occasional
3×3?) micro-minis tend to have the simplest rendering styles.
Take Worms #6, for instance. Kimberlee Traub’s thick but
simple line
verges on the abstract at times, adding a certain weird energy to this
sci-fi/military conspiracy story. On the tiny pages where
each page
contains a single panel, Traub eschews any pretense of traditional
narrative
flow for a series of striking singular images. On the other
hand,
the Johnny Hoang-drawn Mecha #1 is done in a realistic style with
narrative
captions written in a difficult-to-read script. Based on an
album,
Mecha also reminds me a bit of the old Marvel Killraven series, with
Martians
taking over the planet and forcing children to fight in
arenas. Even
in a 3×3? format, the small size of the pages does no favors to Hoang’s
art, which itself is serviceable but otherwise unremarkable.As always, these
Mitchell-written comics
dip into genre concerns like crime (Cops & Crooks #1), gritty
westerns
(Just A Man #4), or sociopathic killers (XO #6). Mitchell is
careful
to have each of these comics tell a complete story in a single issue,
even
if they’re part of a larger storyline. Mitchell packs 40-50
pages
in each issue; even at a panel a page, Mitchell’s dominant narrative
style
still makes each individual comic a surprisingly meaty read.
That
narrative deliberately cultivates a flatness of affect that turns each
genre slightly on its head. In XO, for example, the
matter-of-factness
of the murdering protagonist is so disconcerting that one almost
forgets
why he’s taking a long road trip to Miami. The simplicity of
the
rendering here also worked to the comic’s advantage. Cops and Crooks
was
a flip-book mini, with one side featuring a first-person narrative from
a criminal on a vendetta against the police because his father was
killed
by a cop, and the other side featuring a cop whose father was killed by
a criminal. The heavy rendering of Eric Shonborn’s “Crooks”
portion
looked like it was inspired by Jim Lee-era X-Men comics, which didn’t
translate
well at all. The latest issue of Just A Man felt repetitive,
lacking
the sheer audacity of the two most recent issues.The most intriguing
mini in
this bunch
was Silber Mini-Comics Sampler #1. Rather than include sample
pages
from each of his series, Silber instead wrote new 8-page stories that
focused
more on character, theme and set-up than on plot. Anyone
curious
about what these minis are all about would be wise to pick up this
comic,
which includes a short from the Lost Kisses series, a hilarious
stick-figure
series about one man’s thoughts on life. The drier the humor
and
blander the situation, the more interesting Mitchell’s comics tend to
be.
Mitchell seems fascinated with genre comics, but the micro-mini format
seems a poor fit for a number of them. In the Sampler, at
least,
one can get a quick sense of what Mitchell does best, along with an
understanding
of Mitchell’s unusual voice as a writer.~ Rob Clough, The
Comics
Journal

I have a whole slew
of these mini-comics
and almost regular size comics. Let me go down the list – one at a time
explaining what they are and what they are about.XO#6 – Continuing an
early XO
adventure
about a youth finding his life vocation. The hero of the story, if you
want to call him a hero, does a semi-accidental murder and was stuck
with
a dead body and a vintage Ford Mustang. After causing a person’s death,
the so-called hero thinks of his future. Will he have a future?Worms #6 – A notable
climax
in the Worms
story. Imagine your body being the host of some kind of alien worms.
When
I was a kid I would squirm hearing stories of tape worms and ring
worms.
This little comic book will make you squirm!Just a Man #4 – The
tension
mounts and
the body count continues to grow.Marked #2 – Fighting
demons
the old fashioned
way, with physical violence. Man, watch the Demon Hunter go to work,
fighting
a demon, but before doing so, getting sick in the toilet! The Demon
Hunter
takes energy from other people, so he can confront this monstrocity of
a demon and beat him down like a step-child! When he is finished
beating
the demon, he forces the demon back into his chest and heads out to
catch
a train!Cops & Crooks
#1 –
Debut of a new
series about two very different lives intersecting. Art by Eric
Shonborn
& Jason Young of Guttertrash.net – Yikes! Talk of killing cops,
killing
the system, building an empire. A hatred that goes back when the star
of
this story says that cops killed his dad!Mecha #1 – A new series
giant-sized by
our standards. An homage to the post-apocalyptic sci-fi of the early
1980s.
Art by Johnny Hoang. Wow! Great science fiction artwork with a story
about
fighting Martians. A story of a fighter, a gladiator falling in love
with
the woman of his life, only to find out she is dying.Silber Mini-Comics
Sampler #1
– Seven
incredibly short pieces from seven of our series.My thoughts about
Silber
Media Comics,
if the Mayan Prophesy of 2012 is correct and the world is coming to an
end, I wouldn't mind having some of these comics in my back pack, for
my
last reading enjoyment!~ Paul Dale Roberts,
Jazma
Online!

I got
these in
the
mail a while ago and
just now made my way through the last one. Silber minicomics are some
seriously
mini comics, each page a little bigger than a postage stamp (image
above
slightly larger than actual size). One panel per page, one line of
narration
per panel. The idea is that you can put a few of them in your wallet,
read
them on the bus or train or whatever, so that's what I've been doing
for
the last little while. It's a spartan way of doing comics, occasionally
even close to avant-garde (as in the "Marked" comics, where panel after
panel of loose, swiped-looking '90s-style hero art get hurled down into
an emotionless well until it all just stops). This stuff is the bare
minimum
of "sequential art", wedded to stock genre stories that don't emote or
engage so much as simply exist and wait for you to come to them. The
format
is something some of the artists can deal with and some can't -- the
bad
ones just do drawings, the good ones take the image-image power of
facing
pages, build up a stony rhythm, and make the pictures really cascade.
Notable
titles are Marked, Mecha, and Just A Man. This stuff is pretty weird;
inaccessible,
largely tone-deaf comics that inhabit a sometimes uncomfortable place
between
craft and lack thereof. But that's the charm of them, the charm of the
noncommercial, the primal. Here's their site: you could definitely do
worse.~ Matt Seneca, Death to
the
Universe

Brian John
Mitchell’s minicomics are odd
little things, measuring about 2×2?. Each page contains a
single
panel, and they are paced such that the reader is encouraged to tear
through
them. Each title is a variation on a genre concept, told in
roughly
the same narrative voice from comic to comic. That voice is a
first-person
narrator with an odd flatness of affect. No matter how weird
or horrible
things may get, the voice retains that same unshakable level of
calm.
How well each particular comic worked depended on the artist.For example, MARKED #1,
with
art by Jeremy
Johnson, is the weakest comic in the batch. It’s a story
about a
guy hunting a couple of killers possessed by demons, with the twist
that
he was holding back his own demon. Johnson’s art walked the
line
between simple and unclear, resulting in a number of pages that were
simply
incoherent. On the other hand, Kimberlee Traub’s art in WORMS
#5
( a sci-fi/horror comic about a girl trying to escape from a deadly lab
with her new-found, worm-given powers) is simple and stylish.
The
story also has a manic quality to it that propels the reader through
the
hero’s attempt to escape. The story also has a creepy
quality, as
the worms inside of her become beloved figures in her life in a way
that
is not explained.Mitchell’s western
series,
JUST A MAN
#2 and #3, pick up after the first issue’s massacre of a man’s
family.
He guesses who the killers were, coldly murders them all, and then
leaves
town. The first issue was impressive in its cold bleakness,
but the
series took a series of wacky left turns as it proceeded. The
man
goes to another town, winds up taking a job retrieving a young woman
from
a brothel, and finds his supposedly dead wife is working there–and
starts
shooting at him. We learn that the man was a Clint
Eastwood-style
killer who hung up his guns, but fell quite easily into his old habits
when he had to. The artist, Andrew White, frequently employs
a close-up
style to emphasize the hero’s point of view. For example,
when he’s
in a bar, the reader only sees a bottle and glass in a panel.
It’s
an odd comic that reflects the slightly skewed perspective of Mitchell
as a writer.The most unusual of all
these
comics was
ULTIMATE LOST KISSES #11, which was drawn by Dave Sim. Yes,
that
Dave Sim, of CEREBUS fame. The story involved a woman who
found out
that the son she gave up for adoption was now grown up–but in
prison.
Sim used the one-page, one-panel approach to repeat variations on the
same
static image as though this were a flip book. Meanwhile,
Mitchell’s
flat narration beats on in every panel, relating the feelings of the
character,
but only in the most restrained manner. The most striking
image that
Sim repeats is that of her son, with a shaved head and angular profile,
calmly relating why he committed murder. It’s a comic that
doesn’t
seek to pass judgments on its characters: it simply relates disturbing
events and asks the reader to accept them, as is. Removing
the genre
tropes from his storytelling made this the most direct and powerful of
Mitchell’s comics. The Silber media comics do come across
sometimes
more as novelty items than real attempts at expression, so it was
interesting
to see Mitchell work with Sim to create a comic that was genuinely
chilling.~ Rob Clough, The
Comics
Journal

The more I
read
of
Mitchell's minicomics,
the more impressed I am. He has excellent command of the
format?he
understands what he can and can't do, and he plays to its
strengths.
The stories are lean and mean, no filler, and even though the issue
don't
take long to read, I find myself going back to particular issues for
multiple
reads.~ Brian LeTendre,
Secret
Identity Podcast

We’ve been
talking a
lot lately about how
much comics cost, and alternate ways of writing and marketing comic
book
stories in the current economic climate. In jumps Silber Mini Comics,
postage
stamp sized books by writer Brian John Mitchell that have one panel per
tiny page, printed on regular paper, and sold for a dollar each. Are
they
worth it at any price? Is this the wave of the future, or a relic of
the
past?To get a sense of what
this
means, I decided
to do mini reviews of Silber Mini Comics. Pretty clever, I know, I’m
amazing:XO #5: Most adorable
little
crime comic
ever? It may be the size, but this was like if Bazooka Joe decided to
try
crack one day.WORMS #4 & #5:
The
Prisoner, by any
other name, but also a good, dream-like use of the Mini Comic format.JUST A MAN #1, #2
&
#3: What if you
took every Clint Eastwood Western and made them into a tiny comic? But
what if we could?MARKED #1: The phrase,
“They’ll be back
in in two nights. I can smell their plans,” should let you know whether
you’re interested in this or not.LOST KISSES #9, #10
&
#11: The first
two issues are blog posts in comic form. Issue #11 is the most focused
story of this whole bunch of comics… With art by Cerebus’ Dave Sim.On a whole, the books
aren’t
breaking
any new ground, and with the exception of Lost Kisses #11, they lack a
certain clarity of focus to the story, aping other people’s ideas
rather
than creating their own. Also, only occasionally does Mitchell really
make
the format work for him, as it does in Worms (each page is like a
deepening
nightmare).However! Since this
does
sometimes work,
Mitchell, with the help of a good editor (or a little self editing)
could
really focus on a unique idea that works specifically with this format,
and be on to something. Or, bring on other writers and artists (as he
does
with the Dave Sim issue), and let them play, working instead as a
publishing
house. Either way, $1 is a bargain in this economy, and Mitchell, with
a little perseverance and smart choices, could really build Silber Mini
Comics into something interesting.As it is, they’re an
interesting glimpse
at one possibility for the printed pamphlet’s future.~ Alex Zalben,
PopCultureShock

The
mini-comics themselves really ranged in quality for me. They’re tiny
little books. Barely over an inch by an inch. That doesn’t give much
room for impressive art or a lot of words per page. Most take the form
of poetic shorts, I guess. The narratives tend to have pretty simple
twists that don’t really impress. Looking through the stack of them,
Kurt Dinse’s art on “Star” #1 was one of the stand-outs and there’s
something very simple and charming about “Built” #1 by Mitchell and Joe
Badon. The absurdist “Poit” comics in collboration with Dave Sim (you
read that right) are interesting in their use of the same art, but
don’t really cohere into anything.
The use of violent twists is
something that seems to run through all of the books and grated on me
as they kept piling up. It’s somewhat predictable when you read a bunch
of these in a row. By the time I got to “XO” #7, it just made me groan
more than anything, because the twist was annoying after so many.
Still, there’s something that draws me to these little comics. They
aren’t always entirely clear/apparent on the first reading and that
challenge of seeing how they work exactly, of what Mitchell and company
were going for, is appealing.
Definitely different than most of
what’s out there, the Silber mini-comics definitely won’t be for
everyone, but are interesting to check out. You can learn more at their
website.
~ Chad Nevett, Comics Should Be Good

Silber Media's
Brian John Mitchell sent me a huge batch of his latest micro-mini
comics. As always, these minis are 2x2" and range from 12 - 40 or so
pages. They're almost entirely written by Mitchell and drawn by a
number of collaborators, though Mitchell does do stick-figure drawings
for some of these comics. Mitchell's minicomics publishing empire is
one of the odder phenomena in comics today, and I always look forward
to a new shipment. Given the size of this latest shipment, I'll do a
lightning-round style evaluation of each, with just a sentence or two
of commentary.
Poit!: WTF and Poit!: La Jetee, by BJM and Dave Sim.
The common thread for all of these comics is a palpable yet restrained
sense of desperation. These stick-figure experiments with Sim feature
precisely the same art in both minis, with completely different
dialogue (written by Mitchell) in each. In one, the protagonist pops in
and out of horrible events as a time traveler. In another, he
constantly dreams about killing his girlfriend. In both cases, suicide
winds up being his solution.
Lost Kisses #21, by BJM. This has
always been Mitchell's best series: a series of stick-figure drawings
featuring dialogue with narrative captions that provide a funny
counterpoint, although that humor is cynical and frequently
pitch-black. This one also focuses on time travel, musing on how it
might affect his life.
Built #1, by BJM & Joe Badon. This story
about a robot with human emotions who strives to move beyond his
station in life is about 90% filler, plodding on long after its premise
was established.
xlk: Extreme Lost Kisses, by BJM & Nick Marino.
Best way to describe this comic: if Rambo had been done as a
stick-figure cartoon with an overdubbed narrator pontificating about
his mission ala Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now.
Ultimate Lost Kisses
#12, by BJM & Jeremy Johnson. This story about a teenager who
becomes pregnant and is determined to keep it feels a bit like a Dave
Kiersh comic, minus compelling imagery.
XO #7, by BJM & Melissa
Spence Gardner. This is the continuing story of an introspective
assassin who muses about his life and his relationships. In this issue,
he falls in love with a woman who should raise red flags, and winds up
paying a price. This was a genuinely exciting comic, and Gardner's
simple gray-scaled art is effective in giving the reader short sharp
shocks on each page.
Small Art Series: American, Awake, Climb,
Professor Horton, Why Birds Sing, miscellaneous, by BJM. All of these
feature color photos of assorted textures, meant to mimic wood, fire
(Professor Horton is about the original Human Torch), plumage, etc.
These tiny comics are worth a glance, though not a lingering look,
because it's less about aesthetics than concept.
Monthly #1, by BJM
& Eric Shonborn and Star #1, by BJM & Kurt Dinse.
Mitchell
loves flipping seemingly mundance stories into supernatural thrillers,
all while maintaining the initial dramatic/romantic thread. Monthly
drops an early clue as to why its protagonist can't find the right girl
to fall in love with and why this is so important, and then spills its
reveal halfway through. It's a funny, effective bit of shock, aided by
clear and stark art by Shonborn. Star's concept is similar, though it
lets the cat out of the bag a little earlier and so starts to drag
halfway through. There's also too much clutter on the page.
Vigilant
#1, by BJM & PB Kain. This comic about vigilantes is both
tedious
to read and boring to look at. It's one of the rare total misfires from
Mitchell.
~ Rob Clough, High-Low

Brian John Mitchell and his
various artists seem to pump out these tiny comics with regularity, and
while they're not exactly revolutionary works of art that demand
seeking out whatever the cost, they're unique objects, interesting to
examine as art done under constraints, with one small image and some
text on each miniscule page, which can alternately make for interesting
minimalism or self-indulgent pointlessness.
Of the minis pictured
above, the most interesting is probably "Poit!", which features stick
figure art from Dave Sim (yes, that Dave Sim) that was completed and
then scripted by Mitchell. There are actually two versions of the
comic, both using the same art, but of the two, "La Jetee" is a bit
more effective, presenting the sudden transitions that occur along with
the titular sound effect as either hallucinations or shifting
realities, while "WTF" turns them into a guy apparently going crazy,
leading to the same result. It might have been better to limit this to
one version, but it's an interesting experiment.
On the other end of
the spectrum is Lost Kisses #21, which continues a series by Mitchell
in which a stick figure both narrates his thoughts and comments
"humorously" on them. Previous issues in the series have seen some
tired exploration of typical male neuroses, but this one takes a bit of
a departure, as the stick figure discusses time travel, which he
believes he has been experiencing via seizures. Presented differently,
this might be interesting, but the awkwardness of the dual narration
and commentary ruins it, and the ever-grinning simplicity of the art
makes the comics format of the story nearly pointless.
The Lost
Kisses series also seems to have some offshoots, with Ultimate Lost
Kisses #12 featuring art by Jeremy Johnson and telling the story of a
pregnant teenager, and Extreme Lost Kisses #1, illustrated by Nick
Marino, turning the stick figure protagonist into a pretty funny
version of an action movie hero, all macho swagger, nonsensical plots,
and constant violence. Both are a pleasant change, but not exactly the
best of the bunch.
Mitchell definitely seems to do better when he
branches out into varied subject matter, although recurring
supernatural concepts like monsters and demons do seem to show up
pretty regularly in these comics. "Monthly", which is nicely
illustrated by Eric Shonborn, is kind of neat, about a guy searching
for love, with the title and time period of his searches making sense
after a revelatory twist. "Star" seems like it could also be
interesting, following a traveling singer who is constantly being
pursued by demons, and featuring some of the best artwork that fits
onto these small pages by Kurt Dinse, full of moody, expressive
shadows. It is a bit over-narrated though; Mitchell could stand to
either pare down the language he uses or work on varying his style,
since the declarative, staccato nature of his captions gets pretty
repetitive over several of these comics. That probably wouldn't help
"Vigilant" much though; it's a silly thing following some hooded
figures who have apparently retreated from society so as to beat up
ne'er do wells, with crude art by PB Kain.
In other genres, XO #7
continues the story of a sociopathic assassin who, in this installment,
falls into drug-fueled debauchery and lets a woman get too close, but
manages to survive a death threat through his sheer amorality. It's
creepy in its depiction of a dead-eyed, near-emotionless killer, with
pretty good art by Melissa Spence Gardner. Built #1 looks to start a
new sci-fi series about a football-playing robot of the future who
gains sentience and makes an attempt at freedom, and it's compelling
and almost heartbreaking in its depiction of the robot's desire to live
as more than a slave to violent entertainment. The art by Joe Badon is
a bit scratchy and rough, but that's mostly just a style to get used
to, and it works when depicting the action of the football game and the
frantic flight of the robot.
Finally, the "Small Art Sampler" series
contains some tiny paintings by Mitchell, all centered around various
themes, printed in full color, but mostly just consisting of blobs of
color. There is some attempt to explain the themes of each booklet
through short text pieces, but they're pretty inscrutable, although I
did kind of like the way the images in "Climb" resembled chain link
fences. These were apparently all featured in a gallery show, which may
have been a better manner of presentation, but they do make for an
interesting collection of abstract art, and could allow one to make all
manner of interpretations, if one was so inclined.
As always, it's
nice to see Mitchell and pals making their attempts to expand the idea
of what comics can be through contraction of the space used in the
comics themselves. They're not always successful, but they're out there
pumping these things out, obviously passionate about their art, and
that's something to be admired. Hopefully they won't be quitting
anytime soon.
~ Matthew J. Brady, Warren Peace Sings the Blues